1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle rear structure equipped with a tonneau cover adapted to be disposed to cover an upper side of a rear cargo compartment, and designed to allow an rear end of the tonneau cover to be moved upwardly and downwardly.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, there has been known a vehicle rear structure which comprises a tailgate swingably supported about a horizontal shaft pivotally attacked to a vehicle body, and adapted to cover a rear opening of the vehicle body, a tonneau cover (roll blind) for covering a top plane of a rear cargo compartment, a pair of guide rails mounted to the vehicle body along opposite lateral edges of the rear opening, and a pair of sliders (guide slides) detachably engaged with a pull bar provided at a rear end of the tonneau cover, wherein the slider is adapted to be slidingly displaced along the guide rail during a manual operation of opening and closing the tailgate, so as to allow the bull bar to be moved between a lower position where the tonneau cover is closed (tonneau-cover close position) and an upper position where the tonneau cover is opened (tonneau-cover open position), as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,217 B1 (equivalent to Japanese Patent No. 3613581).
In the tonneau cover apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,217 B1, the guide rails are positioned along the respective opposite right and left edges of the rear opening which are inclined in upwardly tapering relation to each other, when viewed from a rear end of the vehicle, ie., in a rear view of the vehicle. That is, a distance between the right and left guide rails changes between when the pull bar is at the tonneau-cover open position where the pull bar has been moved to a relatively upper position through the tailgate opening operation and when the pull bar is at the tonneau-cover close position where the pull bar has been moved to a relatively lower position through the tailgate closing operation. Therefore, in the tonneau cover apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,217 B1, the pull bar is provided with a pair of protrudable pins adapted to protrude laterally in a variable manner, at respective opposite right and left ends thereof. The protrudable pins are designed such that a protruding amount thereof is changed correspondingly to the upward/downward displacement of the pull bar so as to allow the right and left ends of the pull bar to be constantly supported by the guide rails through the protrudable pins and the sliders. Thus, this tonneau cover apparatus has problems about structural complexity, and wobbling in the right and left ends of the pull bar during the upward/downward displacement thereof.
It is contemplated that the right and left guide rails are positioned parallel to each other in the rear view of the vehicle to allow the right and left ends of the pull bar to be constantly supported by the guide rails without providing the protrudable pins at the right and left ends of the pull bar. However, in a vehicle where opposite right and left edges. of a rear opening are inclined in upwardly tapering relation to each other in a rear view of the vehicle, if the right and left guide rails are arranged to extend downwardly and parallel to each other from a position along the rear opening, each lower end of the guide rails will be located at a position protruding inwardly from the rear opening to cause a problem of hindering an operation of putting/taking articles in/out of a rear cargo compartment. Moreover, the reduced distance between the right and left guide rails leads to disadvantages of deterioration in rearward visibility and decrease in width dimension of a tonneau cover to be arranged between the guide rails.